Swine Flu Update

Graphic: Total Cases of Swine Flu in the USA. Numbers have been gathered from CDC Swine Flu Page each day as they becaome available.

The infection has been confirmed in 36 states, including North Carolina. 

I'll have a new Swine Flu Fun Fact out this afternoon...

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Morning Update on the Swine Flu "Pandemic" for 05-01-2009

**7.52am** update at end of post.

Graph: Total Swine Flu Cases in the USA

It is a very good sign that the rate of infection is not accelerating, although I want to wait at least a week or two before I firmly denounce this whole thing a case of media hysteria and over-reaction by the government.

By overstating the danger from this infection, and quickly moving to act on the event...it is a win-win situation for the government because if there is little danger of this thing killing as many people as the regular flu...then they can claim a success in stopping the disease. They can say.... "give us more money and we can stop even worse stuff than this."

If the Swine Flu of 2009 turns out to be able to kill tens of thousands, then they can say..."we didn't have enough money, give us more money so we can be better prepared."

Remember that the more money government (Federal, State, and Local) pours into education...the worse the education system becomes. It will be the same with health care.

I am very dismayed at the World Health Organization (WHO), who (pun intended) appears to be stoking the fires of hysteria:

The plea came as the WHO raised the swine flu threat awareness level to 5 out of 6, indicating that the world is on the brink of a pandemic.
Holland and Switzerland both confirmed their first cases of swine flu on Thursday, bringing the total number of countries affected around the world to 11.

In Mexico there have been eight confirmed deaths from the virus, with another 160 suspected swine flu fatalities.
There have been 93 confirmed cases in the US, 19 in Canada, 13 in New Zealand, five in Britain, four in Germany, 10 in Spain, two in Israel, and one in Austria.
The US has confirmed the first death outside of Mexico on Wednesday, while a further "probable" case of swine flu has emerged in Glasgow, Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond told MSPs today. The new case is someone with travel links to an affected area, but he also disclosed that Iain and Dawn Askham - the first confirmed cases of the disease - had now been released from Monklands Hospital in Lanarkshire, where they had been receiving treatment in an isolation ward.
Dr Margaret Chan, the WHO director-general, urged all countries to activate their pandemic plans as she made the announcement on Wednesday night.
Phase 5 indicates that there is evidence of the virus being spread from human-to-human in at least two countries in one WHO region. Phase 6, the pandemic phase, is characterised by increased and sustained transmission in the general population.
Dr Chan said that the world was better prepared for an influenza pandemic than at any time in history.

Source: UK Telegraph

Hat Tip: Drudge Report

This is nuts. If we were to face a really virulent disease outbreak, how could we tell if it was a serious threat, other than by examining the real numbers and discounting the words coming out of their mouths?

You and I can do more than all the governments in the world put together to stop the spread of the Swine Flu by merely washing our hands, covering our mouths when we cough or sneeze, and by the frequent application of alcohol-based hand cleaners.

Stay safe, everyone...and don't panic just because someone on TV (or from the government) paints a bad picture so you will stay tuned to be scared even more.

Remember, no one said it better than Ronald Reagan when he said:

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are:

'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"

**7.52am** Update: Then there are stories like this one circulating on the fringes...

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Swine Flu Infection Update

I've been following the reports of infections in the U.S. and preserving data for the purpose of analyzing the rate of spread of the Swine Flu on Conservative Thunder, and here is a very preliminary report based on 5 days of data...

And I've updated the graph...




The reason I've included the graphs is that infections tend to follow a predictable curve as they burn through a population, and I want to see if this one follows that trajectory...

One very good piece of news is that the infection has reached a status where WHO has declared this a Level 5 Pandemic so quickly after the initial reports of infection. If the decision is a scientific one, and not driven by politics...then that means the Swine Flu will burn out relatively quickly, even if there are multiple waves of future infections...this means that the Swine Flu will be unable to reach levels seen in the 1918 Pandemic. It will probably be unable to even become worse than the regular flu...which kills between 30,000 and 100,000 people a year in the USA.

If the decision to jump the gun was a political one, then all bets are still off.

What I would like to see is criminal indictments of people in the media for inciting a panic.

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Drudge Cranks Siren for Swine Flu

Click here to see full size.

I fully believe that there is a special place in hell for people who shamelessly encourage fear for profit.

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Wall to Wall and Treetop Tall, or All Swine Flu, All The Time!

It is no wonder that some people are freaking out over this Swine Flu outbreak in Mexico...especially with Cable News that is on and blaring updates 24 houirs a day, and an always on Internet that is full of speculation and rumors run amok.

Here is just a taste of the kind of stuff that can be found:

I'll start with the stupid, the Democrats are blaming the Republicans, even though Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer bragged about removal of funding "All those little porky things that the House put in, the money for the [National] Mall or the sexually transmitted diseases or the flu pandemic, they're all out" [Source]

and the insane Alex Jones "Swine Flu Special." Just give it a listen and see if you don't agree that he is completely insane and/or relishes his role in spreading fear of all things not him.

The UN is considering raising a global pandemic alert.

John Galt Underground let's us know that compared with everything else...the Swine Flu is nothing to be concerned about.

The Survival Podcast offers a clear-headed look at the Flu Scare.

17 people in the UK are being tested for Swine Flu.

And, for some comic relief...President Obama tells his teleprompter to "speed it up"...



Okay, back to the Swine Flu scare...

President Obama says that there is no cause for alarm concerning the Swine Flu. Eeek! This may be the first time I agree with the guy!

And, here is a map so you can see how the thing is spreading, and separate the suspected cases from the confirmed and see where people have died:


View H1N1 Swine Flu in a larger map

I have given up altogether of finding anything useful on twitter using Twitter Search due to the sheer volume of tweets and retweets and retweets of retweets on news, rumors, and conspiracy theories concering the Swine Flu.

To cut out on the completely unneccesary chatter, here are a few twitter accounts that I believe you should be following:

• @health - regular swine flu updates
• @CDCEmergency - Official CDC Emergency Preparedness and Response Twitter
• @birdflu - h5n1 and h1n1 news
• @birdflugov - .U.S. Government bird and pandemic flu information.
• @pandemicflu - coverage of H1N1/swine influenza.
• @sanjayguptacnn - CNN's Sanja Gupta is in Mexico reporting on swine flu
• @WHOnews - news updates from the World Health Organization (WHO)

Also, check out the accounts that the above accounts are following...there is a treasure-trove of Federal and Health-related twitter accounts for you to check out.

And, perhaps the best one-stop shopping place for info right now is the CDC webpage devoted to the Swine Flu. You will find official information posted there, along with audio and video podcasts and transcripts of press conferences and phone conferences.

There are also pages concerning developments taken from media sources at facebook and Conservative Thunder, and don't forget the simple utility of just searching for yourself:

Google News search for keywords: "swine flu" sorted by date.

Yahoo News search for keywords "swine flu' sorted by date.

I'm going to stop now because my head hurts, and I have two or three more hours of video to edit from Saturday's GOP Convention.

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Swine Flu Discussion on the John Batchelor Show (4-26-2009)

The above video uses audio I swiped from The John Batchelor Show last night.

Show details:

Swine Flu Discussion

John Batchelor Show

Host: John Batchelor
Guest: Dr. Henry Miller
April 26, 2009

John Batchelor brings on Dr. Henry Miller of the Hoover Institution to discuss Swine Flu.

Miller Bio:
http://www.hoover.org/bios/miller_h.html

John Batchelor Show
http://www.johnbatchelorshow.com/

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The John Batchelor Show for 04-26-2009

It's Sunday night, and that means it's time for John Batchelor!





Here is his website.

The show starts at 7pm Eastern, and continues for six hours of the best radio you will find anywhere, as only John Batchelor can deliver it with his stable of experts...

And here is where you can listen to the show live online:

New York, WABC-AM 770 7-10PM ET;
Washington DC, WMAL-AM 630 7-9PM ET;
San Francisco, KSFO-AM 560;
Los Angeles,KFI-AM 640;

And here is where you can find the podcasts of the show: the first three hours, and the last three hours.

Schedule for Tonight: (all six hours are on the same link now)

The first two hours are below to whet your appetite:

100 Days Obama Administration Special

705P Eastern Time: Francesco Guerrera, Financial Times, re Wall St fears grow over stress test results With less than three weeks to go before Washington releases the results of its "stress tests" of the nation's 19 largest banks, most of Wall Street appears to be in need of Prozac.

720P: William McGurn, Wall Street Journal,Opinion: McGurn on Obama's Gitmo,

735P: Professional Roundtable with Clive Crook, Financial Times, Ken Silverstein, Harper's, Margaret Hoover, FNC, re 100 Days Obama administration, re the Torture Memos, re Commission on CIA Tactics Is Unlikely.

750P: Continued re 100 Days Obama, Obamanomics undergo the stress tes, and gets grades. A? B? C?

805P: Dawn Kopecki, Bloomberg, re U.S. Lawmakers Consider Bair's Suggestion to Limits Banks' Size: U.S. lawmakers considered and some backed an idea by Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair to limit the size of banks and prevent lenders from becoming "too big to fail," U.S. House Democrats said.

820P: Claudia Rosett, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. just back from Durban II at Geneva, re the mass walk-out by delegates on Ahmadinejad as he spoke of his Holocaust denia, re the failure of the UN to gain credibility.

835P: Jim McTague, Barron's, Financial Roundtable, John Tamny, Realclearmarkets.com,Aaron Task, Yahoo Finance, re IMF puts sell on Planet Earth, re 100 Days Obamanomics, re 19 big bank stress tests.

850P: Continued re death of Chrysler and the furlough of GM, re cliff-diving (see below).

905P: Malcolm Hoenlein, e Durban II conference in Geneva and the disgrace of Ban Ki-Moon with Ahmadinejad, re the smearing of Jane Harman.

920P: Aaron Klein, WND, re Bibi Netanyahu prepares to negotiate with Washington, Damascus, Cairo, Ramallah, Gaza and the EU all at once.

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Swine Flu Survival Tips

**1.50pm** update below post

I have gathered tips and resources for surviving a potential pandemic outbreak of the Swine Flu (H1N1 variant) and posted them to Conservative Thunder.

My biggest concerns are people over-reacting and panicking...creating more of a problem than would otherwise exist. Concurrent with that is all the insane doomsayers who have been predicting doom for decades will feel that they have somehow successfully predicted this outbreak, despite being wrong 999 times before....they will then gain credence in their own minds, and the minds of the gullible. Many of them will come up with schemes to part fools with their money (like buying Gold, Silver or useless cures or potions for surviving a flu outbreak.

Keep your heads straight, and think things through. After all, we can't all be Burt Gummer...

Here is a video podcast from the CDC:

Find more videos like this on Conservative Thunder

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